


Sea Change

by LizAnn_5869



Series: Life, Or What Happens When You're Busy Making Other Plans [5]
Category: Broadchurch
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, F/M, Family, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-06
Updated: 2015-08-06
Packaged: 2018-04-13 05:23:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,835
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4509492
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LizAnn_5869/pseuds/LizAnn_5869
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Alec and Ellie's family day out turns into a situation that has them facing some fears.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sea Change

**Author's Note:**

> I introduced some original characters in this one and I have to give a shout out to two of the inspirations for names: my boys Sean and Matthew. The rest of the children are named for kids at their school. This story takes place immediately after the story "Home." This is the beach day the family was preparing for in the epilogue.

Alec Hardy had hoped for a lovely beach day with his and Ellie's combined families. He hoped they would spend the day together, relaxed and happy in a way he never spent with his own parents, and rarely ever spent with Tess and Daisy. 

Instead, what he got was himself, standing on a narrow rock outcropping overlooking a pool of ocean water, staring at the face of a little girl who had wandered away from her family. She wasn't in the water yet. But she was dangerously close. He knew he'd have to go in after her if she fell. 

It was a nightmare come to life on a day that had started with so much promise.

*****

It was the last Saturday Daisy would be staying with them, and they wanted to have a beach day to celebrate. In the flurry of activity surrounding their move to the new house, somehow a day out for Alec and Ellie and the kids had been overlooked. They found themselves with the end of the visit looming over them and the need for a celebration overtook everything. Alec had returned home from working until noon, and after a light lunch they packed Ellie's car, squeezed in and drove in to Broadchurch. 

Everybody had the same idea. Beth, Lizzie, Chloe and Dean were three spaces down in the parking lot, arriving at the same time. 

They ran into other people they knew, including the huge Sumner family. Fred was excited because little Sophie, the youngest of six kids, came to the same child minder's and they played together several times a week. 

The Sumner family operated with barely controlled chaos. The kids all seemed to look after each other and the mum seemed pretty distracted. Alec had been introduced to Chris and Shannon, the parents, who immediately introduced them to sons Matthew, Sean, Henry, James and daughters Brighton and Sophie. Alec knew there wasn't a snowball's chance in Hell that he'd remember all those names. It was hard to overlook the hair, though as every one of them had brilliant red curls. Henry looked like he could just about see through his shaggy bangs. (It made Daisy remark, out of earshot, that they were one kid short of being the Weasleys, causing Alec to laugh uproariously.)

They got .99's on the beach, which Sophie and Fred wore all over their faces rather than ate. The Sumners asked Ellie to take a picture of the whole family with an ocean background, and she did. In return, Ellie finally got the picture of the combined Hardy/Miller family that she had wanted ever since she saw the framed one of Alec, the boys and her on his desk at work. 

It was a pleasant afternoon. Tom knew Matthew, who was a year younger, and they went off with Matt's brother Sean to play in the waves. Daisy followed, hoping to run into Chloe and Dean.

Alec chose to stay along the water's edge with Fred. It was as close as he could get to the water and still be comfortable. He found that the ocean air and endless sky was much easier to take with family. It did not mean he wanted to venture into the water at all. 

After a while the older Sumners, Daisy, and Tom returned to their area. There was a huge stone cliff outcropping a few hundred yards from Alec's towel and the Sumner family beach encampment. Matt and Sean loved to climb them, and then, like the pied piper, the older boys had a string of little ones following. James, Henry and Brighton insisted on following, and so did Fred and Sophie. 

After a bit the four adults were supervising the little ones climbing around as the older ones ventured higher. It made the adults nervous but the oldest ones loved it and the middle ones thought they were professional rock climbers as well. Sophie and Fred toddled around the low rocks.

Fred didn't want any part of the high rocks, but Sophie couldn't resist. There was a lot chasing and redirection involved in parenting Sophie, Alec and Ellie observed. "She's my climber," Shannon said with a nervous little laugh. Alec and Ellie could see while the child minder looked so exhausted on a day when Sophie was there. Sophie was absolutely fearless and seemed to have no knack for self preservation.

"As my dad used to say, 'God looks after drunks and small children,'" Ellie muttered to Alec out of Chris and Shannon's earshot. He smirked and nodded. Fred could be a hellion sometimes but at least he was not a distracted, hyperactive climber.

Of course, it was careful Fred who ended up injured, crying, after merely falling over a rock sticking out of the sand. That killed the mood and the Hardys and Millers returned to their towels for a patch up for Fred and the Sumners took off for lunch. They didn't see them again until much later. 

Alec then found himself building sandcastles with the patched up toddler while Ellie had wandered off with Beth and Daisy had gone off with Tom. It really was pleasant. Fred kept up a mostly intelligible running commentary about the people living in his castle. (Peppa Pig and the Super Mario Bros.)  
He had to snicker when Jameson, one of the DC's from work, did a double take, no doubt seeing his DI Hardarse playing in the sand with a toddler. "Well, grumpy gits can play dad too, right Fred?" Fred looked at him quizzically and then started going on about Luigi and Yoshi. Alex stretched his legs out on the towel, and for once, let himself enjoy the sun and the sand. He vividly remembered his childhood visit to the Broadchurch beach. This was thankfully nothing like that.

About three quarters of an hour later, Daisy flopped down on the beach towel next to Alec and Fred, stretching out on her back. She announced, "I think Tom has a stalker. Hannah Bates, she's been following him around all afternoon and she's got a crush like you wouldn't believe! She's probably got his initials all over her diary or somethin'. I got tired of running interference. He will have to deal with her alone once I'm back at Mom's."

Alec snorted laughter. "He'll miss you running interference." 

Fred got up and toddled over to Daisy's towel. She opened one eye to see the little guy in a big sun hat looming over her. "Daisy, up! Up! Make dis!" He offered her a shovel. 

"It's a good thing you're cute," Daisy grinned. She sat up and took the shovel. "Remember when we all went to the beach? The big family vacation when I was what...five?"

"Four," Alec corrected. The big family vacation. The only family vacation. How had they let that happen? 

"I remember you and me jumping the waves," Daisy reminisced. In the back of both of their minds was the unasked question: Dad, why aren't you taking Fred out there? Why are you so scared of the water? He couldn't answer it. He could not burden her with that. She knew enough about the case to know Pippa was pulled out of the river. She didn't need to know the circumstances. 

"Dig, Daisy!" Fred ordered. She looked at her dad expectantly but when Fred spoke the moment was lost. Too many secrets, still, Alec thought with a sigh as his daughter and Ellie's son began to dig a castle moat together. Daisy began to speak, but then a commotion up the beach drew their attention.

"Isn't that Mrs. Sumner?" Daisy asked as they both stood up. 

It was. She was hard to miss with her vibrant red hair, pacing back and forth on the sand screaming, "Sophie! Sophie!" 

Alec's stomach dropped. A sickening feeling of déjà vu washed over him as he spied Beth, carrying Lizzie, and Ellie walking toward Shannon Sumner from the opposite direction. Another mother screaming on this bloody beach. He turned to Daisy, deadly serious, and commanded, "Get Fred and follow me." He didn't want Fred anywhere near the water if he wasn't there to watch. 

His mind went into police mode, focusing his attention on the situation at hand, blocking out Fred's protests and Daisy's soothing words.

Possibilities, he thought. Asleep somewhere. Lost, wandered off. Taken. Drowned. He saw Jameson on the path take notice of Shannon Sumner and approach her. Ellie and Beth were already there. Ellie had her hands on Shannon's shoulders and was looking her in the eyes, trying to calm her down. He could hear her speaking through hysterical sobs. "I thought Brighton and Henry had her and they thought I did and Sean and Matthew and Chris didn't have her...."

By the time Alec arrived Jameson was there too, and he quickly took him aside and advised him to call it in, because they were going to need backup. The beach was so bloody big. 

"Shannon, do you have a recent picture of her?" Ellie was asking.

Shannon stuck a shaking hand into her beach bag and pulled out a phone. "Took it today." she said, opening her camera. The first picture of Sophie was the one with Fred, giving Ellie and Alec a shock. They glanced at each other (in parent mode- how do we tell another child something's happened to his friend) then back to Shannon, back in cop mode. 

They mobilized as quickly as they could. Beth took a grateful Daisy and Fred back to their towel and tried to pass time playing with Lizzie and Fred in the sand. Beth was grateful for the diversion. 

Alec turned to Ellie, "We'll cover more ground separately." 

"Right," agreed. Alec and Ellie quickly squeezed hands in goodbye, and then Miller and Hardy went off in separate directions.

Ellie went up the coast toward the arcade and the .99 booth. She saw Tom coming toward her in the crowd. "What's goin' on?" he shouted as they passed each other. More uniformed coppers had arrived after Alec's call in. 

"Sophie Sumner's gone missing. If you see her, take her to Shannon's towels. If she's gone looking, and I hope she doesn't and stays where she is...anyway, take her to our towels. Beth and Daisy are there with the littles. Okay?" 

Tom's eyes widened at the news but he nodded. "Sure, Mum."

"Thanks. Just keep an eye out." She ran off, scanning the crowd for brilliant red hair. She remembered taking Fred and Sophie's picture at the .99 booth, their faces covered in vanilla ice cream. That was the picture she showed to the small groups as she hurried through the crowd. She scanned the faces too, looking for a hint of a lie, something obscured or covered up. She wished Hardy had come with her. She had a bad feeling about them separating.

Hardy's end of the beach was less populated. There were some families on towels and kids on boogie boards at the edge of the water. He sent Jameson there. 

His phone buzzed in the cargo pocket of his trunks, and he fished it out. Ellie had texted the picture of Fred and Sophie's ice cream covered faces. "Show this," the phone screen read. He was suddenly glad Ellie was such a picture taker. So he worked his way around the towels. One woman with a baby told him that she had seen Sophie toddling over that way but a ginger boy with shaggy bangs, Henry most likely, came over and took her back the other way before she could get up to approach the girl. She hadn't seen her again, but they had gotten fish and chips and were gone for a while. She did remember one thing- "The little girl was babbling about the rocks." Alec looked back to the large stone outcropping and fallen rocks they had taken the little kids to explore earlier. He walked over to the first set of rocks. Facing the ocean, he saw that anyone who went back here would be obscured by the rocks. He couldn't see their towels any more. He had been thinking about why they hadn't seen her, but with his back to the beach and if she went behind the rocks, he wouldn't have. 

Alec recalled the rock climbing adventure from earlier, with Fred and Sophie toddling around the rocks while the two oldest Sumners and Daisy and Tom climbed higher onto the rock outcropping. Sophie had wanted to follow them. She had howled when the families left the rocks for lunch and to take care of Fred's skinned knee. What if she had gone back? He picked up the pace a bit, a slow jog back to where the families had been playing. It was windy, the waves were lapping noisily at the shoreline and against the rocks, so it was hard to hear. He looked up at the outcropping. The older kids had climbed with no problems.

Alec started to climb up a bit and immediately wished he had brought Ellie with him, or at least told Jameson where he was going. He made up his mind to go grab Jameson and bring him back, and then started to climb back down.

Then Alec heard the sound. The wind carried a tiny voice up over the rocks. Alec weighed his options for a moment then decided if she was on the other side of that rock, he didn't have time to go back . He resumed climbing as quickly as he could in the stupid flip- flops Ellie bought for him. 

He reached the top, only slightly out of breath at this point. He expected a to find her here, stuck in a place she couldn't get down. She wasn't there but he could hear her talking and singing to herself. He pulled up to the top and looked over the rock.

Alec's heart could have stopped flat out right there. He looked down to a small rock shelf above a four foot drop down into ocean water. He didn't think it was deep. It still terrified him.

And as he could have predicted, Sophie Sumner sat there in her Ariel bathing suit, smiling up at him. "Hi!" she said brightly. She had no idea of the danger she was in.

Alec didn't want to panic her, so he forced a smile and said, "Hi, Sophie. Stay right there, sweetie. Don't move. With his eyes on Sophie he pulled his phone out. He glanced down only long enough to type, "found her alive at rocks where we were. need help," and sent it to Ellie. 

"Go up?" Sophie asked, starting to stand up.

"No no no no...sit down, sweetie. Sit down. He glanced over his shoulder. It was too soon to expect anyone but maybe.... 

Sophie didn't sit and she was starting to look scared. "I'm Alec...remember, I'm...." (And because Sophie wouldn't remember it anyway and no one was there to correct him) "Fred's dad."

"Where my dad?" Still not sitting.

"He's looking for you."

"Want him!" 

Shit, he thought. She was starting to move. He threw one leg over the rock, then the other, ready to climb down to her. There would just be enough room for them both. 

Her lower lip was beginning to quiver, and an impressive combination of swears were going through his mind when his phone buzzed. "On the way!" Ellie had received the text. That was a relief but Sophie was getting more and more agitated. She lost her balance a bit and Alec started to slide down the rock to the shelf toward her, saying "Sophie, no!" And then Sophie stepped back and she was gone.

Alec had no choice, and really didn't even think. He saw that the fall wasn't that far, and she had made a clean fall, no bumps against the rocks. He dropped his phone on the rock, kicked off the flip flops and followed her in. 

The water was about four feet deep here, over her head. He had followed her in immediately. She was still surfacing when he grabbed the cross-cross straps of her Ariel bathing suit and pulled her up, sputtering and spitting out salt water. 

Alec only had a second to be relieved. His ankle twisted on an unseen stone and he went down, the water momentarily over both their heads as propelled himself up. He was gasping and shaking water out of his eyes. He had grabbed Sophie close to his chest, horribly reminiscent of Pippa's dead weight in his arms for a second.

Then, Sophie was screaming and wriggling and turning into a whirling dervish in his arms. Her face was as red as her hair. She was so alive, so loud in his arms and he felt tears coursing down his own cheeks at the realization of it. He rocked her back and forth, humming whatever it was that he hummed when Fred was inconsolable. He had no idea what he was saying. His heart was racing though, and he realized he might have more of a problem than just figuring out how to get them out of the pool they were in.

"HARDY!" Alec heard a shout over the wind and waves. He looked up at the rocks and was immediately hit with a touch of vertigo. 

Alec took a deep breath, trying to steady himself, and shouted back. "WE'RE DOWN HERE!" If the rhythm of his heart didn't normalize soon he'd feel the pacemaker fire. "MILLER!" 

Sophie renewed her howling. "Oh, sorry, sweetie, that was loud," he shushed her. "Might have to be loud again, though." He felt a skipped beat and knew what to expect. he wondered if this would be the time the pacemaker fired but didn't capture a normal rhythm. He'd really overdone it this time. He felt the jolt from the small device attached to his heart and held Sophie closer. She was tethering him to earth as the panicked feeling of suffocation was starting to worsen. 

Then, he saw two heads pop up over the outcropping. Miller and Jameson, and that was all Alec needed to see to help the panic, at least. Ellie's face looking down at him. She looked shocked and unable to quite process what she was seeing, but she was there, and that's what mattered.

"Holy shit," Ellie hissed. Alec and Sophie were both drenched and while Sophie's face was bright red, she could see Alec's was a shade paler than when she had left him. She wasted no time climbing down to the shelf. "Hand her up, Alec," she ordered. He waded closer to the rock and Ellie reached as far as she could to snag Sophie. Jameson had joined her and helped lift Sophie. She looked down again at Alec, who was wincing and rubbing his chest. Her own heart lurched. More coppers had joined them on the rocks. "Alec," she called down to him. "Can you climb up, or is there a way to go around?"

"I see a way to climb," Alec replied. He hated the weakness in his voice. Slowly he started climbing up, alternately watching his footing, and Ellie's face, Ellie's voice encouraging him as he made his way up to her.

*****

Daisy and Beth were watching Fred build a moat wall only to see Lizzie smash it down with her little chubby hand. "No, Wizzie!" Fred said in an exasperated tone. He was really nailing that annoyed big brother attitude.

It would have been funny, but Daisy and Beth were too distracted. They would talk to the babies and smile, but they kept looking around and behind them. They noticed when more police arrived, and Beth had watched Ellie's progress up the beach until crowds obscured their view. Daisy had no idea where her father was. They would exchange concerned looks but then the babies would draw them back into their activities. Both of them had churning stomachs. 

Finally though, there was some action. Daisy caught motion in the corner of her eye and whipped around to see police running in the direction of the rocks. Beth noticed too, and then they both saw Ellie running. Daisy grabbed Beth's forearm, and they both watched as Ellie paused at Shannon's towel and they hugged briefly. Then Ellie was off at a dead run again. Shannon and her two oldest followed, Shannon dialing her phone frantically.

Daisy started to take a couple of steps in the direction Ellie had just gone, and Beth stopped her. She knew all toowell what Ellie might be seeing if they went back there. "Let's wait. They don't need us in the way."

"I didn't see Dad at all," Daisy said, her voice rising in panic.

"Maybe he has her."

There was nothing to be done about it, then. They sat weakly down on the sand and waited. It was an interminable wait, until Beth's phone rang. It was Ellie. "What's going on?" Beth said, dispensing with greetings and pleasantries. Daisy was hanging on every word. "Oh, thank God. Okay...what? The nappy bag, all right." Beth looked slightly confused. She ended the call. "They are over where you lot were climbing earlier. Sophie's okay. But Ellie needs me over there with the bag," she snatched it up. She thought briefly of telling Daisy to wait but the look on Daisy's face clearly said that wasn't happening. They grabbed the babies and the bag and headed up to the path that lead to the rocks. A couple of paramedics ran past, doing nothing to ease their tension.

It didn't take long to find them. Shannon was clutching Sophie and sobbing. Ellie was talking to a medic, and Alec was sitting on a rock. The other medic was talking to him. He had a metal box in his hand that neither one could identify. Daisy was stunned to see the medic sticking wires to her dad's chest, while her dad scowled and grumbled at him. Ellie saw them and hurried over to get the bag. She fished through it and grabbed a vial of pills. "What's going on with Dad?" Daisy was terrified.

"I feel fine now," her dad was growling to the paramedic. He reached up, as if he were going to pull the EKG lead off and Ellie whirled around to him, eyes flashing.

"Don't. Touch. That." Ellie warned, angry eyes flashing. His eyes widened. Ellie addressed Daisy, not taking her eyes off Alec. "Dad got in a little over his head, Daisy, but he rescued Sophie. His pacemaker fired, but he was still having some issues when he climbed up the rocks to me. This is just precautionary."

The paramedic was eyeing the EKG He didn't see to be concerned. "It fired but didn't normalize right away? The stress of rescuing the baby..."

"Ya think?" Alec mumbled. Daisy sat down on the rock beside him, clutching his hand. Her eyes were still full of fear and he realized that it was the first time she'd ever witnessed this. "Not gonna drop dead on you, Darlin.'

"I thought you told me that was fixed," Daisy bit out.

"These were extreme circumstances," he replied. "Now's not the time, Darlin'. Is Sophie all right?"

"Don't try to distract me, Dad. She's fine and we will talk later." 

"Are you still dizzy? Vision blurry?" The questions were being fired at him by Ellie, not the paramedic.

"Let him do his job," Alec said with a smirk, trying to lighten things up as best he could.

"You weren't going to," she snapped back. She muttered something under her breath that sounded like "fucking knob" and proffered the pills. 

"I don't think I need 'em," he argued back.

"Take your normal dose. Things are normalizing but it wouldn't hurt. I think we should get him in to A & E for observation at the very least," the EMT said. He looked young enough for Alec to think he probably had a pair of trainers in the closet that were older than this guy.

"He's right here in front of you and can hear, and he's going home to rest," Alec snarled. "You said it's normalizing. It hasn't fired again. I'm going home." The paramedic looked up at Ellie. 

Ellie looked at Alec grimly then answered. She knew from experience Alec had become an expert on hospital 'prison breaks.' "If it happens again his arse will be in A&E so damn fast his head will spin. And we're checking in with the cardiologist."

Alec started to speak but was silenced by Daisy's fearful and angry expression. Motion caught his eye and he saw that Tom had joined him. He sighed, resigned. "I'm going home."

"You refuse treatment then?"

"Yes, but she'll keep an eye on me."

The paramedic snorted. "I can tell she will." Alec accepted the pills and a water bottle from Ellie. Shannon approached them, almost shyly. "Thank you, thank you so much and if this caused you to be hurt, I am so..."

He shook his head, in mid swallow. "No, don't apologize. I'm glad she's fine." Another flurry of activity - Shannon's husband, son and daughter had arrived. It was getting to be a party and Alec just wanted to go home. He turned to Daisy, saying, "Think our beach day's over. I'm sorry, Darlin."

"It's okay. I want you to get home."

Beth spoke up, "Chloe and Dean are still here for a while, Daisy, if you want to go with them for a while."

"No, ta, I have to help Ellie keep an eye on Dad," Daisy said, not breaking eye contact with Alec. Beth smiled and squeezed Ellie's arm.

"You have your work cut out for you. Take care of yourself, Alec," Beth said as she walked away with Lizzie. 

"Home. Now," Alec demanded.

"You sound like Fred. We'll go when you're finished here," Ellie snapped back.

The paramedics monitored the effect of his pills on the EKG reading. People started drifting away from the scene, leaving Alec, Ellie and their children with Jameson and the paramedics. Jameson soon excused himself to follow up with the Sumners. "Looks good at this point." the paramedic said, removing the leads. Alec absently rubbed his chest where they had been. "Be sure to follow up with the cardiologist," he said as they packed up to go. 

"On Monday," Ellie promised. She looked down Alec and knew his Monday plans were set. God help Dr. Jones if he couldn't get in, he though. She extended her hand to him. He gratefully took it. He stood up, also grateful that he was no longer dizzy.  
She squeezed Alec's hand tightly. 

****

Finally home, Alec took a shower with Ellie, Tom and Daisy sitting on the bed, waiting for him to come out. When he finally came out in shorts and a t shirt, "Well, I didn't pass out in the shower on you," he announced. 

"Don't even joke about it, Dad," Daisy said irritably. "Can we talk now?" 

He sat down heavily on the bed. "Yes."

"So is the problem fixed?" Daisy asked and her expression clearly told him she would expect nothing less than the full story. "all I was told was you got a pacemaker and lots of people get them. And then you told me 'no more broken heart.' So was that the truth?"

Alec, conditioned to obfuscate his illness for years, found it hard to speak the truth. She deserved it, though. "The pacemaker helps regulate my heart rhythm. The condition won't go away, but it can be managed. I feel a lot better now. You saw the first....episode, I guess you'd say, in quite a while. Mind you, I put myself through a lot of stress today. I climbed, I was in the water with Sophie....."

"And that's another thing. All of a sudden you're really uncomfortable around water?"

"I've never been a big fan of it."

"I know you found Pippa Gillespie in the river, Dad. Is that what did it?"  
Daisy asked. Ellie and Alec exchanged a look, which Daisy shrewdly did not miss. "You don't have to answer. I know it was a copper. I wish you'd told me. I wish you'd told me a lot of things."

Alec sighed. "Pippa was your age, Daisy. There was no way your mother and I would ever burden you with that. It was horrific and that's all the details I'll give you. I still dream about it." He would never tell her that sometimes, Pippa's dead face would  
morph into Daisy's. It hasn't happened in a while, but the memory still left him chilled. 

Daisy sat, head bowed, and she nodded. She looked up at him finally and his heart did break a little to see tears in her eyes. He was so sick of being the cause of her tears. "Darlin'," he murmured, reaching for her. He folded her into his arms. He looked up at Ellie, and damned if her eyes weren't wet as well. Tom was looking away. Guess the honeymoon period is over, Alec thought darkly. 

Then Daisy pulled away, and wiped furiously at her eyes, still hating to cry in front of people. "I'm proud of you, Dad. Even with everything that happened, you were freakin' awesome."

Tears stung Alec's eyes as well now, but he burst out laughing. Soon Ellie was too. "Well......I try, y'know, " he said, sending Daisy into laughter. Tom was cracking a smile. Alec marveled at being at the center of a confrontation that ended not in yelling, tears or stony unforgiving silence, but actual laughter. And to actually be the source of Daisy's pride, it was overwhelming.

"Get some rest, Dad. No more of these episodes, and I mean it," she kissed his cheek and got up. She was smiling but her eyes were sad. Alec could tell she didn't quite trust that it wouldn't happen again, and he couldn't reassure her that it wouldn't. 

Instead he answered in kind, "Yes, m'am. You scare me so I have no choice but to obey." Daisy snorted as she left the room. 

Tom lingered. "So.....you're feelin' okay?"

"I am," Alec answered truthfully. 

Tom nodded, and looked wearily at them both again before leaving the room. Ellie could finally identify the look in his eyes. It was the look of a person constantly waiting for the other shoe to drop. She sighed wearily, the felt some anger bubbling up to the surface. She glared at Alec, arms crossed.

"What?" Alec said, with his own version of Tom's expression.

"So, we're you brushin them off? Do you feel better? And let me warn you right now, don't even think about brushin' me off. I can tell. And also, I've had you nearly die on me. Watched the EMT shock your heart and everything. So don't ever think you can brush me off."

"I am not brushing anybody off, Ellie. And you are the last person I would do that to." 

"You have before. Remember all that time I just thought you were a rude, job stealing arsehole? And it turned out you were a rude, dying, job stealing arsehole?" She thought. "A job stealing, dying, texting-about-major surgery arsehole?"

"Any more adjectives you'd like to add?" He groused back.

"I think I'm finished."

Alec smirked a bit. "Okay....that's good." He grabbed her hand and pulled her closer to him. Her face was still stony. "Ellie. When I first discovered this Tess and I were nearly over. Sandbrooke was going on and if I let them know about my heart I would have been medicalled right out. I had to finish that case. And Danny's. It's a much different situation now. For one, I think you'd actually care. Knowing about me would have just gotten in the way of Tess doing what she wanted, and more than likely I'd be on my own to deal with it anyways." 

"That wouldn't happen now. And you know I care, you bloody idiot." she said.

"I know."

"My husband was in love with an eleven year old boy and killed him. I didn't know what was going on under my own roof." And there it was. She needed to trust Alec implicitly. He thought she did, but apparently she had some doubts. 

He caressed her cheek. "I love you," he sad. "I won't shut you out. That's not happening. And I really do feel better. The pacemaker worked the way it was supposed to, I was just really overdoing it."

"With good reason. Thank God you got there in time."

Alec closed his eyes and leaned his forehead against Ellie's. It didn't take much imagination to picture the scene if he had been too late. Too easy, also, to picture Fred in that situation. It made him shudder and he felt Ellie's arms around him. "She's okay," Ellie whispered.

"Got there in time this go 'round," he agreed in an equally hushed voice. He had to swallow around a lump in his throat. Her arms squeezed him tighter.

"Sophie's safe and the girls finally have justice," she reassured him.

"You didn't. Danny didn't." 

Ellie pulled back to look him in the eye. "No, none of us did. And we just have to go on. And hope there's justice someday. But in the meantime.....no secrets, okay? If you ever feel like something's wrong, please....we need you." 

Alec supposed that was the main difference between her and Tess. He never felt needed, and eventually, he wasn't wanted. Ellie proved that could handle her situation on her own, and she was probably the strongest woman he ever met. But she was willing to lean on him when she needed to and he knew he could lean on her. His parents never had that either and he wondered, and not for the first time, how he got to be the lucky man who had that with Ellie.

Alec nodded and kissed her gently. It was slow, soft kiss that ebbed away, and it didn't leave them breathless like so many other kisses, but it did feel like a kiss to seal a promise to each other. "You were pretty freakin' awesome," Ellie said in a whisper. He chuckled. "You want to sleep a little before we eat?"

"Might be good. I am feeling much better, but a kip would be nice." She kissed him again, and pulled up the quilt at the end of the bed.

"I'll get you when it's time to eat." She left him to rest. He relaxed under the comforting weight of the quilt and closed his eyes. He dozed off quickly, and no dreams disturbed his rest. He wasn't naive enough to believe that his nightmares were over when he rescued Sophie but he thought maybe, as he was greeted by his family when he came back downstairs, he was setting a foot in the right direction.

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I'm not a doctor, or even The Doctor, and I have Alec's heart condition present itself the way it does for story purposes. (Really, Alec should have dropped dead on several occasions in the show, so I don't think my idea is too implausible.)Also I've taken a few liberties with the configuration of the beach and its geography (so Sophie could get into trouble.). And trust me, I think a toddler could do what she does in the story. I've heard plenty of family stories about what a climber my MIL was, and she probably could have accomplished what Sophie manages in the story.)
> 
> Update: I fixed the mistake in the story! Thanks for all who pointed it out!


End file.
